Travelers report crowds, delays at United terminal

Travelers at George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Twitter users are reporting frustration on Saturday with United Airlines, which is in the process of merging with Continental Airlines.

Louise Joy, an Austin resident flying from Houston to Honduras for a family vacation, said the confusion at Bush this morning was the worst she’d seen in 10 years of flying on the first day of Spring Break.

Joy, her husband and two teenaged daughters made their flight because they had pre-printed boarding passes, but five other relatives they met up with at the airport did not.

“This is an absolute nightmare,” Joy said as she waited for her plane to take off. “We had such expectations for United, but this is probably going down as one of the worst (situations) they’ve ever had.”

Joy said she and her immediate family arrived at the airport about 8 a.m. Saturday, well ahead of their scheduled 10:30 a.m. departure. They found hundreds of people waiting to get inside the terminal.

A Spring resident posted on Twitter that she waited 85 minutes to check in (after not being able to do so online Friday), spent more than 35 minutes going through security and ended up missing the flight, a first for her, while her luggage went on without her.

@PubliusTX – clearly no one had plans in place for the beginning of spring break – #United AND #TSA had no plans to handle the masses.

Completely unbelievable!! I’ve been on hold with @united for TWO AND A HALF HOURS!!!! They better do something about it!! #unitedsucks — Genevieve Pattermann (@GenPattermann) March 10, 2012

United spokesman Mike Trevino said problems with long lines in Houston and flight cancellations were unrelated to the massive switchover to a single reservation system the airline conducted last weekend.

Trevino said there were more people flying this weekend because of the spring break holiday and on Friday United had to contend with 35 weather-releated flight cancellations as well as some delays.

“For folks who were not able to get out last night, we would try to put them on flights today, so that too would contribute to the increased volume,” Trevino said Saturday.

Houston Airport System spokesman Darian Ward said by email that, given the spring break holiday, more than 1 million travelers are expected to pass through the big airport in the next two weeks.

In a statement on its website, United said its recent migration to a single passenger-service system was the single largest technology conversion in aviation history.

“We have been rapidly identifying technical issues and improving the performance and functionality of our systems,” the statement said. ” We will be making even more progress in the days ahead.”